Recently I returned from a wild corner of Nicaragua, the Rio San Juan,
near the Costa Rican border.

San Carlos is piled on a hill by the river where the raod ends at the
jungle. Along three mud streets stand old board houses. Tin
roofs bark at the wind. Trillions of green bugs clog the sky and carpet
everyting like moss. Chandeliers of spider webs cover the
light bulbs. Thousands of bats can't clear the air.
At night grillos make loud glubbering sounds, in classic tropical movie
style. Women sweep the dirt from the dirt in front of their
homes, and walk to church. Dugout canoes carry men to fish
and fish to market. The town swarms with kids, chickens and
pigs.

Maria Leila says that San Carlos, the capitol of one of Nicaragua's
nine regions, is "more civilized" than settlements farther along the
river. Here we have electric lights and an occasional drain
pipe.
A family invites me to visit the jungle, so I toss my sack aboard their
boat. Our motor splits the quiet water, launching tall white
cranes into the sky and tortoises into the dip. After two
hours, we enter Rio Sabalos and the world becomes dense green as the
river narrows. At this place, a crude road begins which goes
to Buena Vista. The route twists and kicks up and down,
stomps holes and hops over broken bridges. Farmers with mules
trade rice, beans, watermelons, coconuts, and bananas. A few
Sandinista soldiers patrol on horse and foot. An Easter
procession of campesinos carrying a large wooden cross passes,
protected by another soldier. People greet us country style,
with hands pressed together as in prayer.

Deep in the jungle, we reach a resettlement camp, established to gather
isolated families threatened by the Contras. Many have been
killed in this area. At Buena Vista the Quiros family buys a
chicken from relatives. The children catch it and soon it is
soup for twenty. We are talking about crops, baseball, rain,
water supply, who has good watermelons. The hogs sniff our
plates and are ordered back. School will start soon: they are
learning to read. The radio plays Stevie Wonder's "Part Time
Lover." Most music is from the U.S. The only
television within 30 miles is broadcasting Perry Como from Sea
World. They think America must be a beautiful place.

No one has ever acted discourteous to this citizen of the country which
pays for the destruction of their crops, homes and children.
It is almost more Christian 'love of thine enemy' than I can stand. "We
are innocent," a woman says. They wish Michael Jackson would
visit Nicaragua.

I wish Ronald Reagan would visit Nicaragua. He would learn
that the U.S. has already conquered every tropical Podunk in this
New-York-sized nation. The people would embrace him as a
Christian and movie star. Nicaraguans are better friends to
democracy than the military dictatorships of Chile, Uruguay, Argentina,
Bolivia, Paraguay, Columbia and, until recently, Haiti and the
Philippines, which have received generous U.S. support.

They confront Daniel Ortega on television as an equal, more bravely
than you might dispute President Reagan. They attack government
fumbling. Governments do stupid things, history has proven,
and the Sandinistas are still apologizing for violently relocating the
Miskito Indians. They also bought oil from the Russians right
after the 1984 Congressional rejection of aid to the Contras and
attacked the Contras inside Honduras during the latest debate on Contra
aid. The wartime decree of 1985, limiting civil liberties in
some cases, as does the U.S. during war, has little effect on everyday
life and is just bad publicity.

But do they deserve to be ambushed in the hills? Should
Nicaragua be invaded on behalf of its conservative party?
Should the U.S. be invaded to save the Democrats?

On the whole, I feel more freedom here than in my native
land. Freer from crime, cars, television; giant inhmane
cities; stores full of popular junk; swaggering police; drug addicts;
vengeful god Christians; pressures to be rich; chemical contamination
of water, air and food.

Nicaragua's problems seem caused by the trade embargo and military
threat. They can't repair their tools and presses made in America, in
order to produce basic goods.

Like people everywhere, they gripe about shortages. They are
also self-admitted "grumblers" but also "Sandinistas." They
have had much practice being poor.

Dictatorship here? What dictatorship would hand out over
200,000 machine guns to peasants? Does the U.S. have
representatives from six political parties in Congress? Here
every city block and neighborhood has elected repersentatives who have
directly elected a proportion of the national Assembly. They
are writing a constitution seven years after their revolution, just
like the United States did.

So, if the U.S. invades, these brown people will fight to the last
grandmother, until all 200,000 machine guns melt, then they will switch
to machetes. There will be thousands dead including
Americans. This is not Grenada, this is Vietnam
again. Are you ready?

The happiness of children makes war look ugly. I've enjoyed the kids
most of all. For them the world is a payground.
When I'm tired of satisfying their curiosity about the U.S., I tell
them I'm from the moon, which interests them even more. Moon
food and water is made of stones so it is harder to eat and swim
in. I explain that if there is an invation, I will be here
with them. Everyone who votes and pays taxes in the U.S. is
directly responsible for their lives.

If America really wants to save Nicaragua from Bulgarian generals,
Russian teachers of bad English, bookstores full of Lenin, majority
vote for the FSLN and military reliance on the Evil Empire, then it
will quit funding this cockfight. Americans would see strong
political opposition to the FSLN when the war threat ends.
When Nicaraguans can no longer blame yankees for their internal
problems, they will blame whoever's in power-- and, like I said, these
people are armed.

Even now, the goverment is ready to quit importing Russian armament if
they can rely on the U.S. as an ally. And why not?
There is strong popular demand for friendship with the U.S. as a well
as for U.S. consumer goods, tools and culture. But on fair
terms. When Washington permits free trade again, the works of Lenin
will be quickly replaced by whatever Walden Books can supply.
Likewise, when they can repair their presses, there will be more
freedom of the press. From now on, Nicaragua will be run by
Nicaraguans. The U.S., also born in revolution, should have
the Christian decency and political sense to respect their clumsy
efforts.

4/16/86

Some
of you wondered whom to believe: whether Contras were terrorizing
civilians or whether, as Reagan has said, Sandinista are dressing up as
Contras and trying to discredit them by committing
atrocities. I'll
describe the situation and why I think this is not so.

This
little country has a population less than half the size of New
York city, populating an area half the size of New York state (the
other half of Nicaragua is unpopulated jungle), People are
settled
mainly in small cities and towns, with everybody related to everybody
else by blood and marriage. They each have family in a dozen
places,
and buses are always full of travellers taking a chicken to granny,
visiting cousin, second cousin, brother or sister-in-law, going to a
christening of the daughter of the aunt of a godfather, carrying soup
to a nephew's sick stepmother, etc. This is a very intimate
society,
with an extensive informal communication system. People know
each
other.

As well, soldiers are trained to be servants of the people.
Few drunks or fistfighters in this army. Never seen any
arrogance. They are usually stationed near their families and
are seen carrying sons or daughters.

So it seems to me that, if this murdering has been a secret project of
the army to discredit the Contras:
* Someone would have come visitng town soon after a massacre (which
often happens), see a dead Contra killed by the militia and say,
"That's my brother-in-law's brother! Why, he joined the EPS
(Sandinista People's Army) seven months ago!" And the story
would spread from there.
* At least one of the fake Contras would have spilled the beans by now.
* There are six opposition political parties which would love
to discredit the FSLN and would be quick to condemn their major
opponent if they had any evicence, But they've never made this charge.
* The risks of such a crime being discovered are too great.
Overnight the army would desert, after shooting its
commanders. That's exactly the kind of army this is.

So I would reassure you that this is another example of untruth fed to
Reagan by his advisors, which the President passes on to you.

P.S.: A popular slogan is "We are Sandinistas, not
communists!" The Communists got four percent of the vote in
the 1984 elections.

4/23/86

San Juan del Sur is becalmed beside the ocean, a town too peaceful for
a nation at war, in a world howling angry. Gathered around
nine streets beside a tranquil beach are happy music, horses,
gingerbread bungalows, trees full of cocnouts and mangoes, friendly
folks in rocking chairs, tile sidewalks, oxcarts, boatbuilders,
schoolkids, piggies and quiet windy nights. The rest of
Nicaragua is merely amiable by comparison.

There are other good things, too, according to your taste.
Body surfing and diving in clean waves. Secluded
tidepools. Fine vegetarian meals and fresh lobster.
Fising and big fish. One thousand Spanish teachers.
Sunsets.

Altnough two more items brought me here, I'm tempted to stay for the
whole packeage. I'm visiting the windmills of Rivas being
repaired by David Parkhurst, and the permaculture (permanent
agriculture, or fruit and nut trees) begun by his friend Juanita Senger.

We took horses over dusty paths to visit one of Nicaragua's ten
thousand Aermotor windmills. Several hundred are in the South
Pacific coast, where wind gallops over low hills. On the
Contreras cooperativa, a cattle ranch owned by 30 families, windmills
are so important that they have names. "El Tigre" is one of
six which keep 600 cows alive. Dismounting under a tree
beside Tiger, we admire its tower and broad tank of clear
water. When the breeze stiffens the blades turn, turning
gears which raise and lower a piston, which spills water into the pool.
In such heat, surrounded by miles of yellow grass, the concrete pila
looks as fantastic as a Roman fondtain. A woman is washing
clothes at one end. Her two kids play quietly at the other.

Without David's work these machines would grind themselves to
powder. Most don't work; they've been abandoned for
years. No one has replaced the oil. Some towers are
ready to tumble. This one is missing a furling arm, and the
leather packings are deteriorated. A cooperante wortks with
him, the first to learn his skills.

They have a lot to learn. They've been landless cane cutters
for generations. Now throughout Nicaragua the right to land
and learning is considered part of democracy, like the right to
vote. Here private property is still sacred if it feeds
children. Idle land is given to peasants.

The Ministry of Agriculture approves of David's efforts.
They're hunting a building for his workshop, but have no
money. So he's selflessly-employed, having put his life
savings into the job.

Like many who knew Nicaragua only through television news, I came here
suspicious but have more and more respect for their ability to get
results with scarce resources. They try hard.

As does David. Usually he walks nearly an hour just to get
his horse, then wrestles a few heavy tools 40 feet up the towers to do
urgent work. "I can't make full repairs in the
field. I need a vehicle to get the machinery to a shop, which
I don't yet have, where I could use the right tools, which I also need."

The Rivas region is a deforested jungle where overgrazing has smashed,
exposed and cracked the dry earth. He supports the government's
promotion of more soybeans and fewer cattle. "Salvaged
windmills can be moved to gardens later," he says. "I'd
rather see them pump water for a crop which doesn't damage the soil"

Even now the soy harvest is served in San Juan as soy tortillas, soy
milk, soy shrimp and soy cheese, at the government's Puesto de Soya.

The U.S. trade embargo forces Nicaragua to rely on simpler technologies
to suply food and fuel. This keeps them from making our
mistakes too, like wasting natural resources on luxury products.

Because dozens more projects like these also need help, I went back up
the road , to the world where newspapers quote the latest accusations
against Nicaragua. Our government is trying to protect you
and me (and U.S. corporations) from unfriendly dictatorships.
but Nicaragua is neither of these. During five months I have
seen as much active democracy and religious faith here as in the United
States. You'll probably need to visit to believe me...